NEW DELHI, OCT 6 (PTI): Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday occupied the centre stage of the opposition’s street protest, forcing a total lockdown of Parliament Street as he led an over eight-hour sit-in that ended with his forcible detention after opposition MPs were stopped from marching towards the Election Commission’s office nearby.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and others were released after 10 pm after about two hours in detention.
High drama unfolded throughout the day starting with the opposition march on the “vote chori” allegation from the Parliament House around 10 am amid heavy barricading by police.
While most opposition MPs were detained and prevented from moving forward, Rahul Gandhi along with other Congress MPs including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra entered the Akashvani Bhawan premises, barely 200 metres from the EC office, insisting that they be allowed to meet the election commissioners.
Their sit-in, which began around noon, ended after 8 pm, when a large number of police personnel forcibly removed Gandhi from there and pushed him and others into police vans and buses, as the MPs resisted.
There were scenes of jostling and scuffling between protesters and police, with a policeman seen locking his arms around Rahul Gandhi from behind. Police said nearly 250 people were detained.
Rahul Gandhi, TMC’s Derek O’Brien and a Samajwadi Party MP, besides Priyanka Gandhi and KC Venugopal and others were taken in different vehicles to various police stations and released after a brief detention, capping an action-packed day of opposition protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The Congress said that “LOP-Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has been dragged away from a peaceful sit-in protest” and called it a “sign of a regime that knows its exit is imminent”.
Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that “considerable nervousness is evident in the behaviour of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister”.
Earlier, Gandhi remained holed up inside the AIR compund in a defiant standoff with the police, who largely remained passively resolute in preventing the protesters from reaching the Election Commission office.
At one point during the march, Gandhi, buoyed by cheers of onlookers, climbed atop multi-layer steel barricades and waved the tricolour, before slipping through the police cordons to sneak into the premises of All India Radio (AIR).
The march was the latest in a series of protests by politicians and civil activists to press for CEC Kumar’s resignation since a September 25 Indian Express report that suggested irregularities in the SIR process and differences among the election commissioners.
EC sources said that it has not received any request from any political party for any meeting.
The opposition claims that CEC Kumar is working at the behest of the government to ensure that the election process favours the ruling party.
During the march, opposition MPs were seen carrying cutouts depicting Kumar in an RSS uniform and raised slogans, including ‘BJP hi CEC hai’, ‘Vote chor, gaddi chhod’ and ‘Democracy not for sale ‘.
